Attorney: Disney security director to be named in separate case on allegations of sexual assault

Disney World security is again under fire for discrimination and sexual harassment
Disney World security is again accused of racial discrimination in yet another lawsuit brought by one of its own security officers, but there’s a twist in this case.

Director of Security at Walt Disney World
Melissa L. Merklinger is accused of sexual 
assault and battery by one of her own staff
The plaintiff in the case, Xonia Book is also alleging that Walt Disney World security director, Melissa Leigh Merklinger of Orlando, Florida, sexually assaulted and battered her by grabbing her and attempted to kiss her on the mouth at a company event last year.

Book, who is a Walt Disney World plainclothes officer, also filed a racial discrimination lawsuit last year in which she alleged Disney managers discriminated against her because she was Columbian. 

She lost the lawsuit in 2014, but she has since filed a second lawsuit alleging the same managers retaliated against her after she filed the first suit. 

Book is the eighth current or former security worker at Disney to have filed a discrimination lawsuit against the company over the past few years. 

So far, all the claims involve the same recurring themes of racial discrimination or workplace retaliation by the company.

Interestingly enough, Disney was the one who had initiated the request to separate the charges brought by Book into two distinct cases, one against Disney for racial discrimination and the other against Merklinger for sexual assault and battery. 


So the judge presiding over the case agreed, deciding to split the case in two, one against the company and another against its security director, Melissa Merklinger (picture shown above and below), according to Book’s attorney Jerry Girley.
 
Walt Disney World security director Melissa Merklinger
is accused of sexual assaulting and battering a female
subordinate at a company-sponsored event in 2015
Book's accusations against Merklinger are "an entirely separate set of allegations," Disney said in a motion earlier this year asking to sever Merklinger’s claims from the rest of the case. "The inclusion of these claims in the same action will only make the action longer than necessary and serve to confuse a jury hearing such unrelated claims.”

Disney argued in its granted motion that the two cases would involve different witnesses, exhibits, and legal theories, whatever that means.

Book had filed a criminal complaint with the Orange County Sheriff's Office about the run-in with Merklinger last year, which was forwarded to the State Attorney's Office. They declined to prosecute the case, according to sources.

It is unclear from the motion if Disney's attorneys will represent its security director, Melissa Merklinger, in her case. 

Merklinger, who is a 2001 graduate of Rollins Crummer School of Business with an M.B.A. degree along with her boss, Vice President of Security for Theme Parks and Resorts Operations Jeffrey Villella (Crummer M.B.A. '92), has not commented on the allegations against her.


   
However, an internal company investigation has already concluded in the matter, suggesting Disney is now trying to distance itself from the scandalous accusations against its embattled head of security.



   

Sources:

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